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Unpublished manuscripts are protected by copyright. Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from Augustana College Special Collections and the copyright holder. Contact specialcollections@augustana.edu or 309-794-7643 for more information.

[00:00-02:20]
Andrew Shaffer: Alright [long pause and shuffling noises]
Margaret Lewis: Um I guess I’ll start out. Uh well I guess we should tell you a little bit about ourselves. Uh my name is Margaret. I am a Junior. I am a anthropology and history major, and I am from St. Louis, Missouri.
Harold Sundelius: You are from what?
ML: St. Louis, Missouri
HS: St. Louis, Missouri
ML: mmhmm
AS: and I am Andrew I am a history major uh with a Latin America minor um and I’m a senior this year. So one more year
HL: Is this a senior project?
AS: No this, actually my senior project will use some of these same methods, oral history, but no this isn’t a senior project per se. It’s just a class project for the oral history class that we’re in.
ML: So I guess now that you know a little bit about us um were going to put all the focus on you. Um so I guess my first question for you is what was your community like when you going were growing up as a boy?
HS: Well I grew up in a small town in a northern peninsula of Michigan the town’s name was Escanaba [phone rings]
HS: excuse me
ML: oh
HS: hello? Yes. Right. I’m fine. Yes that, I did get your message and… [walks away]
[long pause Margaret & Andrew talking]
[02:20-12:30]
ML: Hi
AS: How you doing?
Charlene Swanson: Is it off?
AS: What’s that?
ML: Is the recorder off?
AS: No there uh I uh I think they are still going. We can pause it for a second
CS: (mumbles something)
ML: Is what off?
CS: I don’t know you said you were going to record it or something
ML: Yes
AS: Yea yea well
ML: It’s on right now it’s…
AS: Yea it’s…we are recording right now but uh it’s on now but uh this won’t be transcribed or anything (CS mumbles)
ML: Oh, well hello.
(someone laughs)
CS: Now uh I uh what year are you then?
ML: I’m a Junior
CS: Junior. And you went to South American I gather.
ML: Yes I did
CS: and how about you?
AS: Yeah I’m a senior. I didn’t go on Latin American term, but I actually did some independent research in uh Argentina for a little bit. (pause) And that’ll be the basis of my, uh senior project at Augustana, my senior paper.
CS: Yea uh. Interesting so many more chances and opportunities for uh you kids now. (laughs) And uh and where’s your home?
ML: I am from St. Louis Missouri, so…
CS: yea
ML: So
CS: So how did you end up here?
ML: Um. Well they kept sending me stuff in the mail and I was just like ok I’ll visit and then when I came here I had I sat in on Dr. Kaul he’s an anthropology professor I sat in on his class and I fell in love with anthropology and his teaching style so I was like I’m coming here.
CS: And how about you? You’re an old an old hand here
AS: yea I grew up in the area so I have always known Augustana and known little bit of the story and my grandpa actually went on the GI bill for about a year and a half to Augustana and didn’t graduate just took a few classes here and there and the stuff he enjoyed doing and he always told me how good of a school it was. I uh I went to black hawk first actually and got my associates from there and then I applied and crossed my fingers and hoped they would let me in so I could come in. So I came to Augustana
CS: I uh don’t uh we don’t see much of Blackhawk, you know he’s Mr. Augustana yea [ML laughs] so uh we were out with some friends the other night and uh driving around the campus at uh Blackhawk, I uh I couldn’t believe it. I mean uh its really uh its uh wonderful for a kid that has to, who wants to take some courses first [AS:mmhmm] and then uh its very good
AS: I loved my time there. And the campus I mean it’s not quite as nice as Augustana (ML laughs) [CS: Well I don’t know] For a community college it’s pretty nice. [CS laughs] It’s got some of the same secluded wooded area as Augustana and I love that [CS agreeing while Andrew talks]
ML: You went to Augustana correct?
CS: Uh huh. I didn’t graduate
ML: You went there for two years
CS: Yea two years. We had some problems at our home. [CS mumbles] I had a younger brother and a younger sister. My brother graduated and he uh studied geology [ML oh & laughs] and then my sister came and she didn’t stay very long she had a boyfriend back home and uh she went back home and got married. So uh we’re an Augustana family and I am sure he told you that we have a granddaughter there now and one at Luther.
AS: ok…One got away I suppose
CS: And there is another one uh who is a senior in high school. And I don’t know. Uh but she’s a violinist and we could see her playing in the orchestra here but we’re not her parents [CS laughs]. So… And then we had a grandson graduate and he’s now twenty-six I think and he’s uh continued with his job that he had here, which is delivering pizzas. [CS laughs] And his brother went to, well is going to be graduating from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, they are from Wisconsin so. Anyhow so, Harold went to Wisconsin for all his graduate work so, anyhow. He’s talking to a son of a friend who is a geology major [ML: ahh] and uh there was three of them Harold and then you, did you ever know Dick Anderson? [AS: I uh] He taught geology and he died not too long ago, within the last year and a half or so. And then this Charlie Tranter who lives I think Colorado. Anyhow his wife died and they are going to have the ashes here. So they’re kinda making some plans so that’s why he’s…He shouldn’t be taking your time.
AS: No worries
ML: Its fine
CS: Uh what?
ML: It’s fine the only thing I have to go to is geology club so…
CS: O yea you go to Udden?
ML: Yea
CS: Harold uh was just saying he has got another organization down there former professors that he meets once a month and they discuss something very intellectual [ML laughs]…and and then, I don’t drive yet. I hopefully, I will be. I had a couple bad falls and he doesn’t drive. He has Parkinson’s and he he doesn’t have a drivers license anymore. So he has to depend on. So he’s coming next week I think [ML: really] for Eileen Anderson’s presentation at Udden.
ML: Oh yeah I think that’s next week
CS: And the gal uh Wolf what’s her name?
ML: Susan Wolf
CS: She’s is. Susan’s going to pick him up and
ML: She is so nice
CS: [CS coughs] he’s kinda excited.
ML: Yeah, I’ll be there next week so I’ll see him.
CS: Is it next week?
ML: Or, whenever it is. I go to geology club, so I’ll be there either way.
CS: So…he should have told him to call back [CS laughs]
AS: it’s alright…it’s important
CS: We had an interesting morning we have a care giver and she comes four days a week…[CS mumbles] and uh cooks mainly and uh she uh said let’s go to this craft show at this senior citizens place [CS laughs]. It’s Moline Senior Center and uh I couldn’t believe it. We walked in there and there was so much stuff. [CS laughs] Halloween, Christmas, and then they had lunch so we all had lunch together. And uh, Harold’s sister… maybe you knew her husband Dick Swanson. He was the campus pastor.
AS: Ok.
ML: I know of him.
CS: and died, yeah, all very suddenly…we were all students here together…anyhow that’s Harold’s sister. And it’s kind of a neat story. We were college roommates, his sister and me. And my name was Swanson and her name was Sundelius. We both got married and I became Sundelius and she became Swanson.
AS: It’s like you traded.
CS: Traded names…and everybody thought it was through uh you know the Swanson, but it wasn’t it was, uh, the brother and sister. And, so she now is a widow and whenever we go anywhere we include her. She just had hip surgery. So uh, Kai is her son…Do you know Kai?
AS: I know of him I don’t know him personally.
[12:30-13:25]
HS: That was Michael Tranter.
CS: I told them all about it. [ML laughs] I was filling them in on our history. I’ve uh…
HS: The reason Michael is coming with me uh Charlie is Charlie has Alzheimer’s
CS: Now he’s got it.
HS: Yeah he’s got, uh, his wife died from Alzheimer’s and he’s got prostate cancer. He’s living with his son.
CS: Oh, so the daughter isn’t coming.
HS: No she can’t come (long pause)
CS: Ok well I will leave you people
AS: Thanks for talking with us
ML: Yea thank you so much for talking to us
[13:25-16:38]
CS: He’s a senior she’s a junior maybe you found out all that Harold
HS: She knows who Anna is [ML: mmhmm]
CS: She’s on her way to uh right now as we speak to Elmhurst where her mother teaches and her mother is going to work the Homecoming football game. Its homecoming at Elmhurst and so Anna’s going to help her. It’s Anna’s birthday so she’s going to help her mother. Cause she knows a lot of people there that’s not where she uh she went to Vogue that’s uh in between [HS: it’s in Villa Park] Villa Park its between Glenbard East and, where her father teaches and where her mother it, at Elmhurst at the high school
CS: Ok.
HS: Is the tape recorder getting all of this too.
AS: Yea, yea.
CS: So uh maybe all of this will be in there. [everyone laughs]
AS: We will send it to you first and you can take out anything you don’t want to share with the public.
ML: Yea you get to edit it.
CS: She goes to Udden club all the time.
HS: Oh, do you?
ML: Yea, Yea.
HS: We are talking about Udden club because this man who is bringing back his mother’s ashes back to bury them here. He’s he and his father who is going to be at Udden club, his father is my friend, Charles Trantor, when he retired, he was chief geologist of mobile oil. [ML: ok] So he really had a big position.
CS: And now he has Alzheimer’s. Oh, I can’t, I mean I can’t take anymore of this.
HS: I forgot…question you had asked me
ML: I had asked you what it was like in your town you said it was a small town a peninsula, in Michigan. And then, that’s where we left off.
HS: It was a small town, and this is now some sixty years ago. And not as many went to college in those days and as is the case today [CS: coughs]. And it was kind of special if you got to go to college. So, I always considered myself kind of lucky to be able to attend Augustana. And I think the tuition was something like $350 a semester
AS: Be nice if we could pay that now
HS: I actually paid my way through. I worked at the clothing store after, afternoons and weekends selling men’s clothing. And I was able to earn enough money to pay the tuition and board room…couldn’t do that today
AS: No I don’t think so. You would have to sell a lot of men’s clothes to be able afford Augustana’s tuition. [ML laughs]
ML: Umm sorry go ahead
[16:38-19:40]
AS: So kind of going along with that why did you chose Augustana did you have a connection before you came in the first place?
HS: Well yeah, our family uh background is Swedish. Our grandparents all emigrated from Sweden and so as a result we were almost born into the Augustana Lutheran Church. That’s where all the Swedes went to church. So our family all went to church there and of course the Augustana Lutheran Church had a number of colleges: Gustavus Adolphus, Upsala and so on. But the closest one to Michigan where I lived was Augustana so my parents wanted me to attend here and my mother actually wanted me to become a minister, which I had no interest in doing. So I came down here without a plan and the first day we were at registration. It was really cumbersome in those days. We didn’t have computers everything was done by hand. We used to stand in these long lines to sign up for these courses. And I met two guys and one of them is going to be there tomorrow, Charlie Tranter. I met him in line and I met Richard Anderson. And the only one who knew what he wanted to study was Richard Anderson and he said he wanted to be a geologist. And he said did we know that the Geology professor at Augustana was internationally known he was famous and we thought that was pretty good for a little school, to have somebody who was famous. And so we decided to take beginning geology our first semester and we liked it and we all became geology majors. And we were the inseparable three. The three of us were together all the time. [pause]
ML: um…oh go ahead
HS: We all ended up as professional geologists. Charlie Tranter became an oil geologist; he became chief geologist of Mobile Oil. Richard Anderson came back and taught at Augustana for forty years. And I spent some time with the US geological survey and then with Wittenberg University in Ohio and then I came back here after being gone for twenty five years, came back as dean of the college. That’s a brief summery [HS laughs]
[19:40-20:20]
ML: So um I guess my next question would be: what was that transition to Augustana like after you had come from such a small town?
HS: Well it wasn’t that great of a…it wasn’t a problem…because although Escanaba was small, 15,000, the Quad Cities are divided up into small units. You know like Rock Island is 40,000, Moline is probably 45,000, so it was like a series of small towns so it wasn’t too hard of a transition.
[20:20-28:50]
AS: and uh then during career you were involved in quite a bit. I have to warn you we have done a little bit of research on you [ML laughs] we have dug threw all your files in Special Collections. It looks like you were pretty busy during your undergraduate career. Do you have any like things that stick out as really memorable about either professors, other students or all the different organizations and clubs you were involved with?
HS: Well I participated in the famous panty raid.
AS: Really [everyone laughing].
HS: Yeah.
AS: We might have to censor that, I don’t know if that will go in the transcript.
ML: He’s kidding.
AS: No we’ll keep it in. Yeah there was a big article that came out, I think last year. How it all started at Augustana and then swept the nation by storm apparently. So how exciting to meet someone that was there. Do you want to talk about that a little more?
HS: Well, I could say a few more things. The thing as planned, you see this was right after World War II, World War II ended in April of 45 this was September of 48. Actually it was…
CS: Ok I better get out of here. I have the tendency to want to interrupt.
[laughter]
HS: So the panty raid took place not too long after World War II we had large numbers of service men who came under the GI Bill, came to Augustana. And during the war we had a naval unit stationed on campus, a training unit where they trained the sailors in navigation and other things. And so some of those guys came back here and they had no connection with Augustana except going to this V12 they called it. So they came back, so it was a different atmosphere on campus. You had quite a few people who were in their late twenties. And uh so the panty raid was planned with military precision, and different fraternities went down one corridor. And I remember we went down I think the corridor that goes east towards Centennial Hall and I think we were on the second floor and basically we didn’t know what to do we just ran down the hall. We were freshmen. And the girls came up with this good idea. They came and they took perfume and sprayed it on us so they could identify who uh who did the raid… [AS laughs] so they, it was kind of clever. And we had a guy who played the trumpet sound attack and one came out of, there were heating ducts underground and we came under the heating ducts. And then they played retreat when we were suppose to leave [ML laughs] So it was…And of course Bergendoff, the President, he was saddened by this…why would these young men do such a terrible thing to our women…And he had been out raising money and he was flying back from Chicago or to Chicago from Chicago and some reporter heard he was on the plane and got to talk to him and tell him. And at first Bergendoff didn’t know all the details and this happened on a Friday night so Saturday morning the word was that everybody that participated in the raid had to come to in the Chapel which this was in Old Main. Did you know there was a chapel in Old Main?
AS: Yeah
ML: I didn’t
AS: Yeah, I was just looking at a picture of that today.
HS: Yea. It was two flights and they just walled it off and made it into offices and classrooms
HS: Well anyway, Bergendoff was, so he called in the President of Student Government, Peter Beckman, who was also a returning veteran and he got chewed out, as we would say, by Bergendoff. Another…you ever heard about crazy Connie’s car lot. Connie, Begernoff’s name was Conrad Bergendoff. So what they did was, I wasn’t involved in this one. They took student cars and put them on the hill that goes down old main and they had a big sign Crazy Conrad’s Used Car Lot…drew a lot of attention. And another time, the dean of students was Harry Johnson and he was real strict. Well, morally he was the Dean of Students and he tried to clamp hard. Well one night was the guys went over to his house and opened his garage door, jacked up his car and took the wheels off and then they did some prank down on campus and he raced down there, got in his car to go down there, and he couldn’t go anywhere cause…no wheels.
AS: That’s pretty clever
[ML & AS laughs]
HS: I will just tell you one more uh. Did you ever hear of Joe Louis? Well he was a professional boxer. Probably the greatest professional boxer ever. And at the time when we were freshmen or sophomore he was a has been, he had retired. And he spent all his money so he had to go back and give exhibitions. It was really demeaning to see this guy who was this marvelous boxer, boxing against some drunk you know. Well anyway a bunch of us went over to Wharton Fieldhouse in Moline to see the exhibition by Joe Louis. It was snowing out when we came back from over there. And the exams started the next day. Nobody felt like studying so one guys says, “let’s ice up the doors to Old Main.” So what they did was they took snow and packed it in front of each of the doors of Old Main and then threw water on it and it was so cold out it froze. It was like a three-foot block of ice in front of each door. And we figured we could sleep in, they certainly couldn’t have us take our exams if we couldn’t even get in the building. But the janitor got there early and chopped and chopped and he got one door free. So we all had to go in one door and take our exams. Now is that the kind of stuff good material?
AS: That’s good
ML: That’s great
AS: The goal of the project is to get, sort of the unique characteristics of Augustana,
ML: Definitely unique
AS: Definitely good, good material.
[28:50-30:20]
ML: So uh we have that you were involved in um Udden and the geological fraternity? And I guess since those were related to your major do you have any stories about those?
HS: Yeah, Geology fraternity is Sigma Gamma Alpha…It’s either Sigma Gamma Alpha or Sigma Gamma Epsilon. I’m not sure, but it will be in the catalogue. It’s an honorary, a national honorary. And I was in Phi Beta Kappa
ML: Um, as well were you involved in the Inter-Fraternity Council and then Students for Political Education and Action?
HS: Students what?
ML: For Political Education and Action.
HS: Right
ML: Um so I guess do you have any stories about those activities? As well, I heard you were involved in the Roundels.
HS: Yea I was a Roundel. I was an officer in the fraternity…I just don’t have as strong memories of the Roundels.
[30:20-32:40]
AS: Moving forward a little bit, um your wife told us a little bit about her time at Augustana and um…getting she was roommates with your sister, is that correct?
HS: My sister was married to Swanie, [AS: yea] Richard Swanson
AS: She was telling us how they just swapped names, she became a Sundelius and your sister became a Swanson. How, do you want to talk any about that? Cause one of the common themes we find looking at Augustana graduates that they make more lasting relationships than you might find at bigger universities and other universities. And that seems like that’s pretty much always be the case, you make these lasting friendships. You’ve already mentioned Anderson and Tranter and your wife obviously that’s a lasting relationship as well. Do you want to talk about any of those, any other relationships that you made at Augustana that carried on, or just that special quality of Augustana?
HS: Well, actually most of the Roundels I still keep in touch with…the ones that are still living. Some have died…Kind of a funny little thing. We used to have around the spring we would have a day when all the students would take over all the offices of the college. And we would have an election, so we would elect the president, vice-president, and so on. And I was nominated to be Dean of the College and little did I know that would come true. And my wife was nominated by her sorority to be Dean and as it turns we both were nominated to be Dean…and I actually got to be Dean.
AS: Sort of a foreshadowing of things to come? That’s pretty cool.
[32:40-39:00]
ML: So I guess from the start of your Augustana experience to once you graduated to the time you graduated how did you see Augustana change as an undergraduate?
HS: How did I see a change? Well after, well during the war there were practically no students at all. They were mainly female students and the male students were these Navy units that were sent here specifically to train. So it wasn’t a typical residential campus…The veterans, you wouldn’t think the veterans would participate in phrigs…you know the term phrigs?
ML: Yeah
HS: Yeah…pranks. You wouldn’t think these guys who have been through the war would participate, but they did participate. I remember one occasion, a typical day in the military, and one of the big things of each day when you’re in the army is mail call. So they had one guy put his uniform on and he came out, he had mail call. And he stood in the back of a pickup truck and all the GI’s with their uniforms were sitting there and he would call off their names. Of course the way the mail would arrive overseas is that half of the mail was torn and they would get a couple pieces of a letter. And they illustrated that so yea that was and Augie was a relatively small school. I mean, when I graduated I think there was less than 200 graduates [AS: wow] And it actually, it is so much better of a college today than it was then, it’s unbelievable. But that’s true of most colleges. They were, take Knox or Monmouth or Wesleyan they were all in the same boat and it’s been steady growth in the quality of the college and the physical plan, the new building we have, the new equipment we have. It’s just amazing. Did you know that one of our alum’s game 8 million dollars? [AS: yeah] that’s amazing. [AS: A John Deere executive isn’t he?] Yeah, yeah. And we’ve got some prestigious women. Brenda Barnes, she became president of Pepsi Cola, that is a big job. And then she had two or three children and she decided to stay home with them until they got a little bit older. And so she resigned from PepsiCo and immediately the women’s groups all jumped on her and said “that was a terrible thing you did, because now women won’t aspire to important jobs, they will be satisfied with what they had before.” But then about seven or eight years later Brenda became president of, uh, ooo, Sara Lee. And Sara Lee had lots of different companies like Hanes and Sara Lee and well it’s a big, big corporation. And unfortunately she suffered a stroke this summer and I don’t know whether if she is still able to carry on her job or not. But we always looked to her as a woman who made it and she came from a family in Chicago five girls, no boys. And the father had a low paying, blue collar job and all five girls went to Augustana. He wanted to make sure his kids got to graduate. And she said the five of them slept in one room. It was two room house they lived in and then she went on to become a CEO of big companies it’s amazing.
AS: That’s quite a story
HS: Or, uh, the story of our Nobel Laureate. You know the Nobel Prize? Regarded as the most prestigious prize in science that there is. And one of our graduates, a Chinese fellow named Doctor Wu, he received the Nobel Prize about ten years ago in physics. And how he got here is interesting. He lived in a small hamlet in central China and, uh, not much in the way of schooling. And his sister was working for the Lutheran church in Hong Kong and she knew her brother was very bright so she made arrangements to got him down to Hong Kong and then she made arrangements for one of the members of the board of directors who knew her, he was instrumental in bringing this young man over to Augustana before he got his Baccalaureate Degree. That’s kind of remarkable.
AS: Yeah, there’s a lot of impressive stories like that from Augustana people.
[39:00-42:40]
HS: Well when I graduated I was lucky enough to get a Fulbright Scholarship. This provided me with enough money to spend a year at the University of Oslo in Norway, and uh…why did I bring that up? I had some point I was going to make.
ML: We were talking about how Augustana students, a lot of them
HS: Oh, I know. I was worried, going away to graduate school with people who would probably have better scientific backgrounds than I would because it was a small school, and we, we didn’t offer everything that the University of Illinois offered, so when I found out that I could compete with them – easily – the attitude you, you pick up while you’re a student, perseverance, hard work…I had no problems after that. It was told us by many…graduates that they thought they would have competing with big schools graduates, but they don’t.
AS: Fast forwarding a little bit now, when you left Augustana, um, as an undergraduate, you went to University of Wisconsin, is that correct?
HS: No, first I went to University of Oslo.
AS: Ok…
HS: In Norway. Then I came back and I immediately got drafted into the US Army. I spend two years in Korea. And then, I started grad school. So it was three years after I left Augustana before I actually got going on my graduate work.
AS: Ok, and then, when you left Augustana, did you expect to retain as strong of a tie with the Augustana community as you did, coming back and working at Augustana?
HS: Well, when, when I…To be truthful, when I left Augustana, I was glad to be out of there. I had, four years was enough. And, not that I didn’t like it at Augustana, but, you know, four years is…so I was happy to get out of Augustana. By the same token, 25 years later, when I was asked to become Dean of the College, my attitude had changed 180 degrees and I was proud and happy to be named the Dean of the College.
ML: Um, in between that time, you said you worked for the geological survey? And then worked at Wittenberg University, is that correct?
AS: Yeah.
[42:40-44:00]
ML: How did Augustana, I guess, prepare you for those encounters?
HS: Well, it prepared me pretty well. Cause I was able to succeed [indiscernible]. Incidentally, one of my students at Wittenberg ended up as President of Union Oil Company, Union 76. Just a guy in my classes, and he far exceeded me…became top man in Union 76. And he negotiated the sale of Union 76 to Chevron, so he sure made a name for himself.
ML: Um, also, along with that, I found an article that you had written about a Rudy Edmund. He had been a professor at Augustana
HS: Yes
ML: And you talked about how…you and him were very similar, that you both were at Augustana, you left, and then you came back.
HS: Yes
[44:00-48:25]
ML: So I was just wondering if you could tell us a little bit about your experience with Rudy Edmund, cause you had talked about how he was your mentor.
HS: Right, when we started in 1948, I believe Rudy was, it would have been his first year of teaching…he was an Augustana graduate and got his Ph.D. at University of Iowa. And, he taught at Augustana for a while, and then, I don’t know the sequence of events now, but he took a job with an oil company in southern Illinois, and…I think that oil company was Shell. And, the way it worked in those days was you’d be given an assignment, you’d be given an assignment, to ascertain what the prospects for petroleum are in this area. In other words, trying to explore for hidden petroleum. And, uh, he discovered these shoestring sands, these are linear bodies of sand which had been deposited by rivers, and of course they were buried now, 1,000 1,500 feet below the surface. And sand is this very permeable material, so oil, it forms deeper, comes up through the rocks, it fills all the cavity space in this sandstone. So when you drill down, you could get like they had in the gulf, where the pressure forces the oil up, and you capture the oil, it makes our gasoline and everything. He, he showed the results of his work to his boss and his boss says, “Well, you’re probably right that there’s oil in those sands, but the scale are so small, we can’t fool with it.” I mean Shell was big. So, uh, Rudy Edmund said, “I’ll tell you what, I worked so hard on this project I want to see…whether I was really right” you know, that there’s oil there. So he said, “Can I take my maps and leave the company?” So they allowed him to do that and he hooked up with a smaller independent company and they drilled and, of course, they found a tremendous amount of oil. And Rudy Edmund had contracted that he would receive royalties out of all the oil produced. It made him an instant millionaire, you know. And, well I, I didn’t become a millionaire by any means, but, uh, so Rudy was in and out of industry, in and out of teaching, but always, uh, devoted to Augustana. He was a real gentleman, he was a man of strong character….Where did you see this thing I wrote?
[Air conditioning turns on making the recording more difficult to hear]
ML: In Special Collections in the Augustana Library. There was a copy of pretty much anything written about you or something you wrote, and it was in there. We’ve got a copy here.
AS: Yeah, we’ve got a copy here if you wanna…if you wanna take a look at it.
HS: You know, I don’t remember writing this.
[All laugh, Dr. Sundelius spends a few seconds reading the document]
HS: I guess I did write it.
[All laugh again]
[48:25-54:00]
HS: I think we had a little memorial service for him, in the geology department. But I really don’t remember… Something to do with respect to higher education, I worked as a teacher and administratively, I was Associate Dean at Wittenberg. And one day, the Associate Dean [indiscernible] came and saw me down having a coffee and he said “I got something I want to show you” and he had a letter from President Tredway. Tredway had, well had just been made president then, naturally President Tredway announcing that there would be a new Dean at Augustana, because Tredway was the Dean and he was moving up as the President and there was to be an opening there. And so he had written to a number of private colleges around the country and asked if they had anyone they wanted to nominate for that position. So, he said to me, “Do you want be nominated?” And I said, “Oh, I don’t know. I like what I’m doing now.” Because, I would teach for 9 months and my summers I would work for the…Exxon Minerals Department, down working with minerals, and we would go to great places every summer, and I would take my wife and two children, and they got to enjoy it, it was a vacation for them. I was working my tail off. But anyway...what was I talking about?
AS: You were talking about when they, uh, getting, uh, sponsored to apply for the Dean.
HS: Oh yeah, right. So, he said, “Well, I’m gonna nominate you anyway.” So, they contacted me from Augustana. Of course, they were interested in me cause I was a graduate, and uh, they said, send us a brief copy of your resume. So I took them at their word. I sent a page and a half description. And Tredway said after I got the job, he said, “You should have seen some of these guys. Catalogue sized, of all the accomplishments they had made.” I just boiled it down to a few things, and Tredway said that was smart, because nobody wants to read it all this…yours got read because it was brief. So, then I got the job as Dean, and came back here to work.
AS: When you started, you were the Dean, the Vice President, as well as teaching, is that right? When you came back in ’75?
HS: The title of the job was Vice President and Dean of the College and then, I, uh, I forgot what else you asked besides that.
AS: Where you also teaching at the time?
HS: Oh, when I came back…I tried it for a couple semesters but I, I had too many other responsibilities that I couldn’t do a good job teaching. But I continued to participate in the Udden Club, and uh, I continued to participate in the field trips. Have you gone on any of the field trips?
ML: Um, I have with Norm Moline for Geography. And then I went on the Freshman Geology trip to the badlands, back hills and Big Horn Mountain.
HS: With Strasser and Wolf?
ML: Yeah.
HS: That’s quite the program.
ML: I loved it. So, I guess, while you were at Augustana, as Dean, Vice President and later on as a professor, was there any memorable experiences that you had, now that you were not a student but you had switched positions to the person in charge, kind of.
HS: One thing that’s kind of funny, when I came back, I was surrounded by peers, there were still a few faculty teaching that had me as a student, and that was kind of funny…You know, do you call them Doctor or Mary, you know…I shouldn’t say luckily, but in a few years they were all gone [laughing]. Time has its way of taking…but, Edmund had me in geography was one, he was a great man. And that’s your major then too, geography?
ML: I’m anthropology and history.
[54:00-55:45]
HS: Oh, that’s right, you’re…do we have a real anthropologist now?
ML: Yeah, we have two. Dr. Carrie Hough and Dr. Adam Kaul.
HS: Is either one of those the one that is interested in Indian affairs?
ML: That’s Dr. Steve Warren, he’s a historian.
HS: Yeah, history.
AS: Yeah, he’s now down dealing with some sort of dispute
ML: Between
AS: Is it in Kentucky?
ML: I think so, it’s between, uh,
AS: Between, two tribes or something?
ML: Yeah, it was the government, since they had deemed them both the same, because it’s similar names and genetics, but they consider themselves to be different, and he’s dealing with the land disputes right now.
HS: He’s what?
ML: He’s dealing with the land disputes.
AS: Yeah, between two tribes that the government sees as just one entity, but
ML: They see themselves as separate.
AS: Yeah, so he’s sort of a, I don’t know if he’s mediating or just, serving as sort of an advisor?
ML: He’s looking at old historical documents and…using them as a reference to prove that they get to keep their land and that the other tribe doesn’t get moved in with them.
HS: So is he on a leave of absence then?
AS: Yeah, he’s on sabbatical for, I think the whole year.
ML: I think so, yeah.
HS: He’s been in the news several times.
AS: Oh, yeah?
HS: Well, they, a documentary by, Ken Burns.
ML: Oh yeah, the Tecumseh film?
HS: Yeah.
AS: Yeah, we both had a class with him last
ML: Spring
[55:45-59:45]
AS: Spring, yeah. It was really good. Um, talking a little bit more about your role as a Dean and the Vice President, when you were there, that was when the Latin America Term first was established, is that right?
HS: Yes, yes.
[Margaret nodding]
AS: We have a fan of the Latin America Term over here [laughing]. She got to go on it, I unfortunately didn’t.
HS: Did you find out anything in my file about this?
AS: No, we didn’t find anything about your role.
ML: It was just like a brief excerpt, like it started while you were in the position.
AS: Yeah, that’s all we read, and then that your wife was also in
ML: Pan American Club
AS: Pan American Club, and we didn’t know if maybe that had some influence on it.
HS: No…When I came we had started these foreign quarters. And we had two of them, Europe and Asia, and we alternated them, every other year. Well shortly after I came, within the first month or six weeks Tom Brown, you didn’t know Tom Brown probably.
AS: The Latin American historian?
HS: Yeah, well, Tom Brown came to see me in my office and he said, “You know, we ought to do something in Central and South America” and I said, “Do we have the personnel to do it?” “Yes,” he said, “we’ve got people to handle the courses” and, uh, he gave me a good presentation. And uh, of course, I knew that if I approved this and it went through, there would be one person who would be absolutely wild over it and that’s Norm Moline [laughter]. Because he, he, maybe rightly so, he felt that if we divide the pie three ways rather than two, either he’ll have less possibilities for Asia quarter. Faculty members are very jealous of their turf. And, so I announced that we were going ahead with Latin American quarter. That was the first big change I made when I came. And Norm was furious [laughter]. He said, “We’re just getting the Asian program really working good now, and now you’re gonna do it every third year rather than every second year.” But I have to say that he came around. And we were at some kind of a meeting and it came up and Tom Brown said, “well, it was the Dean’s idea,” and everybody knew that Norm had fought it, and Norm said, “I didn’t fight it, I thought it was a great idea.” He changed his mind on that. So that was an example.
AS: [to Margaret] Where you telling me that, apparently, last year was the last year for Latin America term?
ML: Um, it was the last year that they’re doing it, like the three countries. Cause it, when I went on it, it was Ecuador, Peru and Mexico. And from now on when they do it, they’re only gonna go to either one country at a time or two. They’re not doing the three countries at a time.
HS: Going to stay in one location.
ML: Mmhmm. Um, this next, this upcoming year, they’re going to Brazil, um, and they have the summer Ecuador program, as well as you can go for terms during the school year. So, it’s still there, it’s just different shapes I guess.
HS: I taught on the Asian quarter.
ML: Oh, really? Did you ever end up going to Latin America since you…?
HS: No, I didn’t.
[59:45-1:07:00]
ML: Oh…So I guess, overall, after coming back, um, you had, [as an aside] I don’t know how to explain it…What was…When you came back to Augustana and, after, and then serving there, how has, what would you say overall is your arching, like, memories of Augustana?
AS: Yeah, like how have you seen it change, going from an undergraduate, then leaving for a few years, coming back, both as a professor, as a Dean, how has the college itself changed?...Or even stayed the same really…?
ML: Yeah, what about Augustana…
HS: I think it’s a much better school. In the twenty-five years.
ML: So, I guess in the…
HS: We’ve lost, pretty much lost the connection with the Swedes. And in a way that’s too bad, but…And we have somewhat lost the connection with the Lutheran Church.
AS: Um, I don’t know, um, if you’ve been made aware, but next year, they’re starting a partnership between Augustana and St. John’s Lutheran Church in Rock Island, um, which Margaret here is deeply involved in, um.
HS: Are you involved with that?
AS: Well, I guess we both are to a certain extent, but…
ML: The Micah House…
HS: Yeah, we’re members at St. John’s.
A and ML: Oh, really?
HS: So, I’m kind of interested in it. We’re going to have a series of cottage meetings to hear more about the program.
ML: What are cottage meetings?
HS: Well, you meet in somebody’s home, ten, twelve people.
ML: Oh, ok.
AS: Yeah, it sounds like a really interesting program. A really good way to connect Augustana to the community as well as…
ML: To the church
AS: To the church, yeah.
HS: Right.
ML: I guess, is there any other stories or memories that you have, of either an undergrad or while you were working at Augustana? That you would like to share with us?
HS: Well, I’m sure there are….Did you hear the story about the student who was taking a course in religion? This was on the third floor of Old Main. Now this happened before I came back, so I can’t verify the truth of this. But, Peter Beckman was the professor, passing out the exams, he had corrected them and graded them and was handing them out and this one kid got such a bad grade, he walked over to the window…And the windows in Old Main go right to the floor. He opened the window and jumped out. And fortunately he didn’t, you know, spin or twist or anything, he went just straight out and landed on his feet. And it had been raining and the clay there was all wet and so, he broke both ankles, that’s it.
AS: Wow.
HS: I don’t know if you should use that, I can’t…
AS: Well, we’ll do some more research on it, see if we can find...
ML: Myths of Augustana
AS: Something on it, yeah. I’m sure there is some information.
HS: I, I came to visit Augustana in connection with the job, about two days after this happened. And everybody wanted to show me the footprints. [laughter] So I suppose there’s gotta be some truth to it.
AS: Yeah.
ML: Is there anything that you wish we would have asked you? That we didn’t bring up?
HS: Well one thing I could say is that Augustana is a liberal arts college, well you all know. And I think one of the…most important things that Tredway did was to strengthen the liberal arts. Um, many private colleges like Augustana, small private colleges, have gone to technical majors, and, the history and the philosophy and the anthropology gets kind of wiped off. And instead there’re computer…not that the computer is bad, but you know, a good example of this would be St. Ambrose. They have more, you know, police, law and order programming. You got a whole variety of them. And I’m sure they’re successful, but that isn’t what we wanted to be. And Tredway, he looked at everything, “well, will this enhance the vision of the college to be a liberal arts school.” If so, we’d do it, if not, we don’t do it. And during that 25 years that has been…this has occurred and the demographics show it, the number of high school graduates each year going down every year, which meant our job of recruiting new students was getting more difficult each year. And because of the way that we took a college-wide approach to it, admissions, financial aid, wherever it came up, extracurricular activities – all these things. And we were able to maintain the school as a bona-fide liberal arts college, and I think that’s a great, great accomplishment, considering the times.
[1:07:00-1:08:05]
Dr. Sundelius, Margaret and Andrew schedule a follow up interview
[1:08:05-1:12:10]
HS: I should tell you one more thing that occurred to me. Um, one year about ten years ago the alumni board voted me a, uh, Distinguished Service Award. And so when they presented to me, they said, “You can make a response, but no more than two minutes.” So I decided, I began by saying Augustana college has been very good to me and my family. And I said something about it, I said, looking around at this alumni banquet, I started to tic off the number of people who were Augustana graduates who are my relatives and I started, myself, my wife, our two daughters, their two husbands, and cousins of mine, and, it kept going and kind of grew, and so and so, and so and so and so and so and so and so, and pretty soon the whole audience was all chanting in the same rhythm with me. And, uh, when I got done, I told them I probably left some out, but I probably maybe had 50 or 60 names of people. And we were the first generation to come to Augustana, so…I think we made a good choice.
AS: I think so, yeah, it seems like that sort of happens, that Augustana gets in your blood and the whole family sort of ends up going to it.
HS: They call it, what do they call it, in a sorority they call, uh, what’s the term they use, like if your sister was a COG.
ML: Um, I can’t think at this moment.
HS: Not a legend, but…
ML: I don’t remember. I know that they said that your granddaughter, when she was talking to the COG but I can’t remember, cuz I was at the same table as her, but I can’t remember what they called it. Cuz I’m a CAP I’m not a COG. I went through the Rush process with her. But I know a lot of COG. I’m a CAP though.
HS: Our older daughter did an interesting thing. She was in two sororities. First she was in KEY sorority, went through the whole rush, the hell week and everything, all the way up to the final moment and she said, “I don’t think I’m gonna be a KEY I think I’m gonna be a COGs. So she stopped one step short of becoming a KEY and went through the whole thing with the COGs
ML: Wow, I would not go through that twice…Did you actually hear that the Roundels came back last year?
HS: Oh, did they come back?
ML: Yeah, they came back, yeah last year. It was their first year back. Cause they had been gone since like ’02 or ’05 or something.
HS: Yeah
ML: Yeah, they came back. There are a lot of them. They had a class of, a pledge class of like 40. So, yeah, they came back with a lot of people.
HS: That’s the change that we’re seeing through the years. The lessening influence of the Greek groups. And the, the, uh, the number of other kinds of organizations and are doing well. You know, the Udden Club could be one.
ML: Mm hmm.
HS: …Well, I’ll try to think of some more. [laughter]
AS: Yeah, there’s quite a few different groups.
ML: Yeah, we have a lot of campus, or groups on campus.
AS: Alright,
ML: So now I guess we can do the paperwork part.
[1:12:10-1:24:20]
During this break, Dr. and Mrs. Sundelius, Margaret, and Andrew work through paperwork and say their goodbyes.
[1:24:20-1:25:11]
ML: I’ll see you at Udden Club in two weeks. You can sit by me [laughter].
HS: You can introduce me.
ML: Okay, I’ll introduce you to everyone. That would be so exciting.
HS: Do they still have the sugar cookies?
ML: Oh yeah.
AS: You didn’t tell me there was cookies.
ML: There’s a cookie czar, that’s his name. It’s Jake Gotley [sp?]. He’s been doing it for three years.
HS: What does he do, pick up…?
ML: He goes and gets all the cookies.
HS: You know how they used to pay for them? They would actually go down and collect all the aluminum cans and take them down on Saturday morning
CS: Yeah, do they have cookies?
ML: Yeah they have cookies. No worries, there’s cookies provided. Alright, well thank you so much and you’ll probably hear from us in like a week.
AS: It was really good meeting you.
HS: Well, we’re here.
2nd Interview
[00:00-01:20]
Harold Sundelius: …has changed at Augustana. And I..we…I didn’t really answer that, we got off on something else. [Margaret laughs] I thought maybe I’d start out there.
Andrew Shaffer: Yeah, that’s fine.
HS: I don’t know how long my voice is going to last but we’ll try. [rustling noises] First of all, Augustana is a much stronger institution now than it was 50 or 60 years ago when I was a student. I has a stronger faculty and it’s got a, a better physical plan: the dormitories, library, the science building. It’s been…the [knock on the doorbell] I’ll get that.
[Dr. Sundelius goes to the door]
AS: [gesturing towards Margaret’s recorder] Is yours going? [Margaret indicates that it is] Ok. I think mine is…now we have to transcribe that bit.
[laughter]
AS: [to Mrs. Sundelius] Everything we say on here, we have to write out. So this that I’m saying right now, we’ll have to write that out too.
Margaret Lewis: So, you probably shouldn’t have said it.
AS: Nope, definitely shouldn’t have. [laughter] We’ll cut it out in the final, but we have to transcribe it once.
ML: [gesturing towards Mrs. Sundelius] She looks so cozy! [laughter]
[01:20-5:30]
HS: So, it’s a lot better school. And it’s considered one of the good liberal arts colleges. [clears throat] Secondly, the college was formed by these Swedish immigrants who came over here, and they wanted to have, to worship God in, in their own language. So, they, there were probably about 30 little congregations scattered around the Midwest here and they got together and formed what’s known as the Augustana Senate. It’s a, it’s a collection of small Lutheran congregations that form one big…umbrella organization. And so, they, originally the language was Swedish in the church. And the college was supposed to train people to become ministers. And so, and that’s the reason for the college. There’s a place on here, right on the border between Illinois and Wisconsin called Jefferson Prairie and that’s where they decided to meet to form this organization. So they met there and formally created this organization. And that’s what we’re celebrating, the 150th anniversary from the founding of that time. And, uh, on the exact day 150 years ago, I think the day was June 5th, some of us went up and had a little ceremony at Jefferson Prairie. And we timed it so it was exactly 150 years ago, 3 o’clock in the afternoon, I think it was June 5th. So, and, the college started out with an academy, because many of the immigrants hadn’t had much education at all in Sweden. So they weren’t at all prepared for college, so they established an academy, which was like a high school. And they went through that then they were able to go to the college. So, here at the original college was tied closely to Sweden, to Swedish and to the Lutheran church. Probably the biggest change is that Swedish is no longer the language, and the college is much broader than just Lutheran church. In fact the Catholic church has more students here than any other church body. So…the original college wouldn’t recognize today’s college. And it’s, I think for better or for worse, there’s no going back. Well maybe that’s enough of that.
[05:30-08:50
[Margaret laughs]
AS: No, that’s good.
HS: Incidentally, if you want to know more about the history of the college, there’s two histories written. One was written by Conrad Bergendoff, president here. And that covered 1860 to 1935. And then there’s a new history that just came out by Tredway, the former president. That goes from 1935 to 1962. And now we’re, trying to find somebody to write the history from 1962 to 19, to 2000, to whenever Tredway finished.
AS: It’d be interesting to read through those. [Margaret agrees]
HS: Yeah, it’s really interesting reading.
AS: Alright, well, actually kind of, the questions we have today are kind of similar, just about the history of the college and your role in, in how it’s changed. So I guess, starting off, what, in your time in the administration there in the 70’s and 80’s, and into the 90’s as well, you were still at the college, is that correct?
HS: Yes.
AS: What were some of the bigger changes, um, that you, that you witnessed take place during those times, during that time?
ML: Such as, like, the birth of new organizations, or, um, the movement away from the Lutheran church, like, during the time that you were here, what were those prominent changes?
HS: Well, the, uh, growth of the student body, in terms of numbers. We had a, the board of directors said that the college should aim for an enrollment of, from 2,000 to 2,200. And we were able to attain that. And during this period, you’re talking about the number of high school students who graduated and would be going on to college, declined every year. And many other liberal arts colleges, in order to maintain their enrollments, they went into technical training more. St. Ambrose is a good example. Um, and Augustana maintained, was true to its heritage as a liberal arts college. And I think that was one of the accomplishments of Tredway’s tenure. We didn’t sell out the college to things like police work, or recreat-you know, these technical, which, you know, are all good and fine, but they don’t belong in a liberal arts college. At least we feel that way. And we were able to maintain that.
[08:50-12:20]
AS: Kind of in a similar vein, I’m going to skip a head a little bit, in our list of questions. But looking back on the last 40 or 50 years, how have you seen the college’s approach to attracting new students change? You know, a lot of colleges put out brochures about how they have the biggest fields or the best sports teams, or things like that. But it seems like Augustana has, can have a different approach to attracting potential students. And how do you think that has changed over the years?
HS: One thing that’s changed is that, up until President Sorenson, he was here from 1962 to say, 1975… yeah 1962 to 1975. And, uh, when he came here, our admissions office really didn’t go out looking for students. They just sat there and waited for student’s to come. And that mode of operation doesn’t work anymore. You’ve got to go out and aggressively sell the college. So, a big change was a profession-a professionalization of admissions using, uh, school visits, visiting the high schools. And tons of brochures, and, so, it has worked, and of course we would do like all the others would, try to put the best foot forward. For example, we always mentioned that Augustana has a Phi Beta Kappa chapter, which only 10% of the colleges and universities have. And it’s based on the perceived strength of the college. We’ve had Phi Beta Kappa for quite a while now. As a matter of fact, we had a Beta chapter since 1950, so that’s good…Athletics has come to be very important. I just saw in the paper today we’re going to build a new stadium for soccer and Lacrosse. Did you know that?
ML: Uh, the one going next to PepsiCo?
HS: Yeah.
ML: It’s going to have a turf field.
HS: Is that gonna be for soccer?
ML: Soccer and Lacrosse.
HS: Yeah, so, funny thing with these liberal arts colleges. Parents like to send their daughters to a smaller college, safer college.
[laughter]
Charlene Sundelius: Safer?
[laugher]
AS: I supposed that’s a relative term.
CS: I’ll shut my mouth.
AS: You’re free to contribute
ML: Yeah, you can intrude whenever you want. Interject I guess, is a better word…
[laughter]
AS: Contribute
ML: Contribute, there you go.
[12:20-15:30]
HS: So, we had to have a professional staff to, well the coaches became the recruiters for the athletes. And what I had started to say was that if the parents were sending their daughters down here but the daughters weren’t too happy unless there were a fairly strong number of males. We couldn’t run an all girls school, it wouldn’t work. So, how do you attract males? Well, you have a good athletics program. So, the girls come without real hard recruiting, they just come. But then we’ve got to recruit the men to bring it up to even. [laughter] I had another thought there that escaped me for a moment. Well other organizations attracted, for example the music program here is very good. And there are some students who come particularly for chemistry, it’s a good program…well, maybe it’ll come back.
CS: Do you wanna mention about how it, uh, they got rid of the PE major?
HS: I wasn’t planning to.
CS: Oh, [laughter] ok. Don’t talk about that.
HS: Well, basically what happened was, we had a PE major and many of our athletes who left here and became coaches at high schools, particularly in the Chicago area, and that was fine, because as coaches they could help recruit students to Augustana. But Tredway thought that that was not a liberal arts enough program, so, we eliminated the Physical Education program. Our younger daughter graduated in that program and she’s been coaching at York High School in Elmhurst for 27 years I think it is. Now she wouldn’t be able to do that.
AS: They have a minor, I think.
HS: Maybe they have a minor yet.
ML: I didn’t know about that.
AS: I don’t know if it’s PE specifically, I think it might be like sports medicine maybe? Or something like that. I don’t know exactly what it is. I saw it in the catalogue the other day. Something. I don’t know what it is.
[15:30-20:18]
ML: I guess you were mentioning how, while Tredway was president, he instituted, I guess, getting rid of the PE major because it wasn’t a liberal arts education, what was something that you personally contributed to in changing something about the college?
HS: That’s a hard question to answer. [laughter] We, during the time we were involved, managing, we established an international program which has grown ever since then. It started off as two places. And the unique thing was, we took our own faculty with us, faculty who had background in these geographic areas. We took our own faculty with and the students took the same courses that they would take back here except they were on site. And the two that we started with were Asia and Europe. And Europe we started…five weeks in London, and then sometimes two or three weeks in Strasbourg, France and a couple weeks in Italy. So we had a really good European program. And then Norm Moline got the Asian program going. And Van Symons, they’re the two Asian specialists. And, one thing that’s kind of interesting, we tried to get into China, but we couldn’t get into China. We got to Hong Kong and we got to Taiwan, but we were not able to get into the mainland China. Until, well I don’t remember the date of when it happened, but suddenly the Chinese opened the borders to educational groups, and we were the first ones to go in.
AS: Oh, wow.
HS: Among all the colleges and universities…
ML: Oh, wow.
HS: …we were the first to go in…And since then, then we added the South American program. Did you go on that?
CS: [gesturing to Margaret] She went. Both of these kids have been world travelers through their college, haven’t you? [both AS and ML agree]
HS: We think it’s correct that students have an opportunity to do certain international work. But it’s expensive.
ML: Well, we now offer Augie Choice though, which gives you up to $2,000
HS: Yeah, that’s a nice idea.
AS: When I went to Argentina, I also got funds from the Freistat Center on campus. They give scholarships, I think it’s just for international travels, um, and that, you know, it helps a lot too.
HS: And where did you go? You went to…
AS: To Argentina.
HS: Argentina. One country?
AS: Yeah, just straight down there. I was only in Buenos Aires. I never left the city for eight weeks.
ML: His was more like independent research. [AS agrees] It wasn’t, it wasn’t an Augustana program.
AS: Yeah, sort of DIY program, just sort of made it myself...
HS: What’s a DIY?
AS: Do it yourself. [laughter] Yeah, just sort of made my own program and asked them to approve it, and luckily they did, so, that helped a lot. And Van Symons actually helped quite a bit.
HS: My grandson, he did something similar. He wanted to go to Wales. He had his own program. I don’t think they transferred any credit for that though.
[Margaret laughs]
AS: Yeah, unfortunately they didn’t give me any credit for it, but they gave me the money for it. So, yeah, that’s not nothing.
HS: Well, after you get, South America came, the most recent, we have international programs almost everywhere now. Even Vietnam.
ML: Mmhmm, yep, they’re going again next winter.
[20:18-23:30]
AS: …Um, moving along a little bit more to more, recent I guess. What besides the Udden club, which you’re still connected to, what other ties do you retain to Augustana, either as a college or just people from Augustana?
HS: Well, as an alumni, of course I’m very interested in programs at the college, and what direction they’re going and so on [clears throat]. But many of my friends are fellow graduates of Augustana that I maintain contact with.
CS: Well, I might mention something. Just this week, now, is the Swedish film festival.
ML: Oh, ok.
CS: It’s going on. And I, I went to two and Harold plans to go to all of them, so that would be an activity that he, you know, feels strongly about, and is going, going to.
ML: Didn’t you also say he met with people still to, [to AS] what was it, do you remember? It was in the beginning of the interview, it was when she came in, she said he still met with people to talk about intellectual things. And then she was laughing about it.
CS: Oh yeah, there’s a group of them, they meet once a month it’s…
HS: Oh yeah, that’s called FOOF.
CS: I don’t know if it’s secret or not.
ML: FOOF?
HS: Tredway named it FOOF.
ML and AS: FOOF?
CS: You have to be invited.
[laughter]
AS: Oh, very exclusive.
HS: FOOF stands for, the letters stand for Faith Of Old Friends. And it’s interesting. It started about, a group of about five or six people, all males, and gradually took in more men. Finally we have a woman. Marilyn Overt. Do you know her? [ML answers in the negative] She was in biology. She feels very comfortable with all men [laughter]. And what we do is, we take an article from journal or sometimes a book, and we have a week to, I mean a month to read it, and then we meet and discuss it. It’s kind of a social thing too.
ML: So, like a social book club? But intellectual [laughter].
AS: Well, the most important question: do they have cookies?
HS: No [laughter].
AS: That’s no good. You’ll have to get somebody on that.
HS: I can’t remember if I got my cookie or not last [referring to Geology Club].
ML: I don’t think you got one.
[23:30-25:10]
HS: I thought Hammer gave a fine talk [agreement from ML]. And, uh, Eileen Anderson, I thought she was very good. Her father was Richard Anderson who died.
ML: Who, that was your best friend, correct?
HS: Pardon?
ML: That’s your best friend, correct? Richard Anderson and you were close friends, yes?
ML and HS simultaneously: With Charlie Tranter.
HS: The three of us. And we were always together on campus. And then we ended up marrying three women that were part of the group. We introduced Charlie and what turned out to be his wife.
ML: Part of what group? Like your group of friends?
HS: Yeah.
CS: What did he say?
ML: That, um, all the women you guys, that the three of them married were part of the same group of friends.
CS: Yeah, well, the school wasn’t as big. Didn’t have so many as they do now.
AS: How many people were there, do you think, when you guys were in undergraduate?
HS: Students you mean?
AS: Yeah, how many students?
HS: Maybe 1300 to 1500.
AS: Oh, wow. It’s almost doubled then, because I think now they’re about 2500 aren’t they?
ML: Yeah, it is.
AS: That’s a big difference…[reading notes, gestures to ML] Go for it.
[25:10-26:40]
ML: We were wondering…Augustan seems to be really active in their involvement, student activism in general. Um, so how do you think that that, um, has changed over the years? Are students still really actively involved in things and are they continuing to grow more in that?
HS: Well, I think since the 60’s it’s, student activism has grown everywhere, not just at Augustana, but everywhere. I heard a funny story about, in the 60’s when we were having student protests and, a group of Augie students were going to protest. They, they were not as aggressive as what was going on elsewhere, and as an example they decided they were going to march up to President Sorenson’s house, and demonstrate in front of his house. But as they were walking there were, they had people in the group that were making sure nobody walked on the grass. [laughter]
ML: That’s really funny!
AS: It’s always nice to have a polite protest. [laughter]
ML: Oh that was great…
[26:40-28:25]
HS: And when they had the shooting at Kent State, do you remember that? The National Guard opened fire on students. It was horrible. Several students were killed. And that affected our students here too. And they didn’t know what to do. But that what they could do when they were just kind of mingling around the campus and whatnot, and I think it was Tweet. You know Tweet? He suggested that they paint a wall. There was a building where the Student Union, where the College Center is now. There was a building there called East Hall, that’s the eastern part of the campus [agreement from ML]. So what they did was they gave paint, paintbrushes. And they painted what they felt on this wall. And they kept that wall there as a reminder of Kent State. And, uh, eventually they tore the building down. I think they kept parts of that wall. Have you seen anything like that?
ML: Is it that wall on [referring to the recently painted retaining wall on 38th Ave]?
HS: No, that’s something new.
ML: Oh, ok.
HS: But that was kind of nice that they vented their anger in kind of a positive way.
[28:25-31:00]
AS: Yeah, it seems like most of that, the activist groups on campus now are not so much just protesting, but are actually working for something: raising funds, they’re raising awareness.
HS: We had this thing that was called the Friendship Fair. And, the old gym, which you have never seen, the red brick gym, would be all decorated inside, and all the fraternities and sororities and independent clubs would have a booth there and would be selling things that they made having to do with a particular country. And this was called a friendship fair. And what they would do with the money they earned was bring over, depending on how much money they made, bring over one or two foreign students a year and pay their tuition. So we could have foreign students on campus. Somewhere along the line that faded away, but it went on for several years.
CS: One of the projects, or things, was a Kiss-o.
ML: Kiss-o?
CS: Kiss-o. And, uh, you’d go inside and, uh, they made arrangements with Hershey and got all these Hershey kisses that were wrapped in…and you played, it was like Bingo, only it was Kiss-o. And you used those candies, instead of corn, or now it’s just…anyhow I thought that was really clever [laughter]. I don’t know if anybody else did, but, I, I thought, and that they got in touch with Hershey and Hershey thought it was a nice little idea. It was a busy booth. You got to eat something, the candies.
[31:00-33:20]
AS: Yeah, that would make it pretty popular…I guess, one more question. How do you think the student and faculty relationship has changed, or even stayed the same? Like we have, um, now there’s been a lot of friction maybe between students and the administration about the new Student Center that’s been proposed, or about the remodeling of Old Main. Um, like there’s still a healthy dialogue there, how do you think that has changed or improved, or gotten worse over the years?
HS: I think it has improved over the years. Uh, the faculty members are no longer some figure to be feared, you know. I think a healthier relationship between the faculty and students. I could be wrong. When I was there, that was the case…everything is much more informal now. Which is probably a good thing. I was at Wittenberg University for 10 years before I came here and things were, there was one building called Presentation Hall, that would be like Old Main
ML: Oh
HS: And girls couldn’t enter that unless they were wearing skirt, skirts. The guys had to wear ties to go into this classroom building, because that’s where the President’s office was.
ML: Oh, wow.
HS: There were a lot of things like that. And the college has, adapted, all those things are changed now. It’s very informal. But issues come up where you might have faculty-student conflict.
[33:20-36:00]
AS: Yeah, it seems like,
HS: Do the BOS still have their homecoming parade?
AS: I don’t know.
ML: Do the what?
HS: The BOS.
ML: The BOS?
HS: Do they still have their homecoming parade?
ML: No…they had a homecoming parade?
HS: They used to have uh, every group had their own home, home parade, and they’d go down 7th avenue
ML: Oh, I saw that in the yearbooks.
HS: You saw it?
ML: I saw it in the yearbooks.
HS: Yeah, and the BOS did something, well, do you remember, is this Saturday Night Live that’s still on?
ML: Mm hmm.
HS: Well, they, they did a parody on the black students. What they did was, they copied what was on the, uh, Saturday Night Live. Instead of having a white man dragging a black man down the street, they had a black man dragging a white man down the street.
ML: The BOS did that?
HS: Yeah, and that offended, not the white students, but the black students, and it raised quite a fuss. I remember we were meeting daily for several hours with the black students, trying to solve this problem. Jesse Jackson from Chicago, he breezed in and said that he knew there was a Ku Klux Klan chapter on campus, but there wasn’t. But, Jesse wasn’t always good with the facts [laughter]. Was that? That was, the punishment for the BOS was to, uh, attend a, uh, seminar on race relations led by one of the psychology professors. They had to go every week for I don’t know how many weeks. What is the conflict over the, uh, Old Main, is it the cost?
[36:00-37:00]
AS: I don’t think it’s so much the cost, because I think most of the money, or maybe all of it, is coming from donations, I think it’s just an interruption to, to classes and things like that. Cause you get, well we’re here in class, there’s construction noises all around you,
ML: And also, they’re changing the dome to a degree. Like it’s not going to be the same struc, like the same material. They’re changing the composition of
HS: Well, copper’s what is should have been. But, I’m surprised they’re using copper because it’s very expensive. But, when the Swedes built Old Main the copper, of course, oxidizes, it turns green, so the Swedes said, we haven’t got real copper, but we can paint it. So the color of Old Main has been that [laughter].
AS: I didn’t know that.
HS: Fake copper.
AS: So this time it’ll be real copper. Yeah, I think the
ML: Yeah, I didn’t care about the changes
AS: Yeah, I think the biggest controversy has just been the
ML: Student Cen, Student Center.
AS: The Student Center.
[37:00-38:00]
HS: What’s the controversy there?
AS: The money, I think.
ML: The money and the location. And, I know a lot of it was the location, because the spot that they had originally said, a lot of students were angry at where the spot was. And along with that, some of the services that it’s going to provide, students are like, “that’s a waste of money.” Not everyone feels that way, but a lot of people do…It just depends on who you talk to.
HS: Well, I wondered why they needed another college union. But, it was explained to me that the present college union isn’t really a college union. It doesn’t have the amenities that you expect in the college union.
ML: Mm hmm. Yeah, there really aren’t any big rooms.
AS: Upstairs?
[38:00-42:10]
ML: It’s not that big though…So, I guess in general, are there any other things that you want to talk about, or that you hoped we would ask you?
HS: No [laughing].
AS: Anything you wish we wouldn’t have asked you?
HS: No [laughing].
AS: I hope not. And then, is there anything that you…cause the whole goal of this project is to get at “What is the Augustana story” and the big over-arching idea of “What is Augustana and what makes us unique” and, you know, in the world of lots of liberal arts colleges. So is there anything you want to say about that particularly, the Augustana legacy, I guess? Our own particular story?
HS: One thing I just thought of, and not on that subject, but another big change is the increase in cost.
ML: Oh yeah.
HS: When I was a student here, tuition for a semester was $350.
AS: Wow. It’s a little bit more than that now.
HS: And, another thing that changed was the Illinois State Scholarship program, which we don’t have anymore, I don’t believe, which money was given to Illinois residents and they could use it at public institutions, like either U of I, or they could use it at private schools. And that changed, our student body became, overnight became 90% Illinois. Because other states had other programs, but you had to stay in Wisconsin or Iowa.
ML: Ah, I see.
HS: And so, we ended up with, uh, almost 90% Illinois students.
AS: Even still, I think it’s probably mostly Illinois students, and mostly from Chicago, or from the suburbs of Chicago.
ML: It’s not as much, though, as people think.
AS: I guess that’s just the impression you get.
ML: Yeah, it just seems that way, but it’s not as much as everyone thinks.
AS: Wait, you’re not from, you’re from way over there in Missouri.
ML: Yeah, I’m from Missouri!
HS: Where in Missouri?
ML: I’m from St. Louis.
HS: Where?
ML: St. Louis.
HS: Oh, St. Louis, yeah. I used to take field trips down to the Ozarks.
ML: Oh, I love the Ozarks.
HS: It’s been pretty down there now, the colors.
ML: Mm hmm. It’s really pretty on campus right now too.
AS: It really is. With all the leaves changing, yeah. This is my favorite time of year to be on Augustana campus, cause it’s just so nice.
ML: I missed it last year.
AS: Oh, that’s right.
ML: [to CS] I guess, you went to Augustana also, and then you’ve been a part of it since he’s worked there forever. Is there anything that you would like to add about it being, what you think is that Augustan story?
[CS shrugs]
AS: Kind of a lofty question [laughing].
HS: I got a couple things I just thought about.
CS: What did he just say?
ML: he thought of a couple things.
CS: Ok, go ahead. I’ve got something to say, but it’s not for the uh,
AS: Not for the recorder?
CS: Not for the recorder.
ML: Oh!
[laughter]
AS: We’ll save that for later.
HS: Well one big change I should have mentioned is the growth of women’s athletics. When we got here it was practically nothing.
CS: Intramural
HS: Intramurals. Well some of the coaches were saying, “well, girls really aren’t competitive.” Was he off the mark! And I think now we have a pretty good program. That was a big change. And something else I thought of, but get her first, maybe I’ll think of it.
CS: No, you go ahead.
HS: I can’t think of it, I lost it.
CS: Oh.
AS: We can come back later. Want us to pause the recorders for a second?
[42:10-45:00]
HS: I was going to say it’s interesting notice the number of alums who send their children to Augustana. That’s, speaks well for the school. We had both of our daughters went to Augie. And their kids, one girl is here now and one boy graduated from here. So that’s the third generation. [ML: mmhhmm] We have another girl that I hope comes here. She’s a violinist.
CS: Well we do have a lot of Augustana people in our family. One dinner, I don’t know what it was. [chair makes noise] You were honored for something [ML: ohh] Remember and you had to get up and give a talk?
HS: O yea I think I told them that
AS: Yeah, the alumni dinner?
HS: Yeah
CS: And he started in telling you know different family members. And it got funnier and funnier [CS: laughs] Because he just kept on and on. [everyone laughs] And people started to laugh.
HS: Well and it got kind in to a rhythm [CS: yea] and Joe Shmo’s brother is here, and of course he married a girl from here and so on.
CS: Yeah, yeah.
HS: Yeah.
AS: Did he plan that out or did it just?
HS: No
CS: No
CS: It just, he was going to say his immediate family. Well then, then he really…
ML: Got going?
CS: Then he really got to thinking [laughing]. And I don’t know who it was somebody one of the administrators said it was the funniest thing he ever heard at Augie was this.
HS: Oh that was this guy who was on the Board of Directors. From that point on he always called me funny guy.
[laughter]
HS: I don’t think of myself as funny guy [laughter]. This guy was a wealthy man and had a business in Wisconsin. He would come down for the board meetings, he was about ninety years old. He would drive half way, pull of the road, take a nap then drive the rest of the way.
CS: Oh I do that! I pull in the cemetery [everyone laughs] and go to sleep. And he walks around.
HS: And I walk around the tombstones
[45:00-48:30]
CS: But I don’t drive anymore…much. [AS:mmhhmm] Anna was here a little while ago?
ML: Anna was here?
CS: huh?
ML: Anna was here?
CS: Yea but she had to go back. [ML: ohh] Yeah. And, uh, you know, I drive her down. You know real short little trips [Charlene mumbles].
HS: You know most kids get their drivers license at sixteen. Anna didn’t have one yet and she’s twenty.
ML: Anna doesn’t have her driver’s license?
HS & CS: No
ML: Ohh!
CS: Her aunt.
HS: Our older daughter
CS: She got her driver’s license when she, after she graduated and got her first job
ML: Why doesn’t Anna have it?
CS: I don’t know.
ML: I’m going to ask her now. [laughs]
HS: But this story about our other daughter is funnier and she did not drive and she was interviewing for this job. She got the job and the guy said, “well I will be bringing your car down on Monday” this is a Friday and he said, “then I’ll fly back to Chicago and I’ll leave the car with you.” A work car. Well she had to go pass her driver’s test [everyone laughs] and get her driver’s license before he came back and she did.
ML: [laughs] Well that’s good
CS: We were driving around the parking lot down there in Centennial [everyone laughs] all weekend.
HS: You know she had a bike just like Anna and they like to ride their bikes.
ML: Oh yeah? I didn’t know that. [laughter] Good to know.
CS: Do you both have cars?
AS & ML: mmhmm
ML: I have a brand new car
AS: You do? What do you have?
ML: I have a 2010 Ford Focus [AS:ooh]
HS: You have what?
ML: A 2010 Ford Focus. [HS: ohh] So it’s brand new
HS: That’s a nice car
ML: [to AS] That’s why I don’t let you ride in it
AS: O thanks…mine was new a couple of decades ago [ML laughs]
HS: What do drive?
AS: A ‘98 Honda cCivic
HS: A good practical car
AS: It is. Great gas mileage. It’s fun to drive. It might not be a 2010, but, you know
HS: We have a Rav4 [AS: mmhmm] which when you get to be our age most cars are too low. [AS & ML: mmhmm] It’s hard to get in and out for us and pickups are too high. [ML laughs] So this Rav4 is just about the right height. To get in and out.
ML: Oh, nice. So I guess is there anything else you guys would like to add?
AS: Any final comments?
HS: Well, It’s been fun talking to you
ML: aww
CS: mumbles
ML: huh?
CS: It’s been fun, it’s been very nice to meet you, and uh
HS: I hope you get a good grade on this [laughter]
ML: me too
CS: We won’t take the blame [AS laughs]
AS: Well we will tell Dr. Todd you said we should get a good grade
ML: I’ll definitely add that in there, highlight it for her.
HS: Dr. Todd?
AS: Yeah.
ML: Dr. Molly Todd
HS: I don’t know her.
AS: She’s the Latin American historian now.
ML: She’s pretty new.
AS: She’s been here a couple years.
ML: Yea like three or four.
HS: I’ve been retired fifteen.
[48:30-51:20]
AS: She took over for, um, for Tom Brown.
HS: Oh Tom Brown was an excellent teacher.
AS: That’s what I’ve heard.
CS: He never stopped
AS: He still teaches occasionally doesn’t?
HS: He what
AS: He still teaches occasionally doesn’t he?
HS: He might, I don’t know. But when I was Dean if I heard the secretary say, “Dr. Brown is here to see you” I would go “oh God” and it would usually be five o clock and I was ready to go home and eat supper. You couldn’t get away from him. And he talked, but he’s very bright and very interesting to listen to but you couldn’t get away. I put my hat and my coat on, walked out, locked the door, walked out, walked to my car and he’d go right along with me. One night this was when we were having problems with the contras in Latin America. And he would, he gave a talk on the whole controversy. And I wanted to learn more about it, so I went and sat in about the fifth row. And, uh, there was a good audience, maybe like a hundred people or something like that. So he started into this talk and I was so entranced by it that I didn’t realize everybody had left and I was the only one there.
[Laughter]
AS: Oh wow.
HS: But I was so interested in it I…
ML: Everyone left?
HS: Yeah, well they left cause he went for over an hour.
CS: Over an hour!
HS: Closer to two hours.
CS: Three or four hours.
AS: Well, probably had a lot to say.
ML: I can’t believe people left.
HS: He used to teach with a machete in his hand
ML: What!
HS: Yea it was like a prop, he had to have something to…
ML: That’s great
AS: Yeah, Dr. Todd doesn’t do anything like that [HS: no I wouldn’t think so]. She’s a little, she’s a little calmer.
ML: Yea
HS: Young I imagine?
ML: Yeah.
AS: She was actually, she came from the University of Wisconsin as well. In Madison.
ML: mmhmm. She just got published
AS: Yeah, she did. She just got her book, a couple of weeks ago I think.
ML: mmhmm
AS: On El Salvador and the displaced people there. Should be good. Looking forward to reading it. Um, alright, well that’s, that should be all that we’ve got for you today.
HS: You got enough raw material there
AS: Oh yeah, I think so. Now we gotta cook it up and make something out of it. That’s the hard part.
ML: [laughs] cook it up
[51:20-52:40]
[Discussing presentation of findings, inviting the Sundelius’ to come]
[52:40-55:00]
HS: I should talk to you about the calendar. That’s been a dividing issue as long as I have been here.
ML: The calendar?
HS: Yeah, half the faculty wants semesters and the other half wants quarters. So now we have something that is neither semesters of quarters.
ML: That’s how we have trimesters?
HS: What?
ML: That’s how we got trimesters?
HS: Yeah.
ML: Oh.
HS: Well, they’re not really trimesters. Well, I guess you could call them trimesters, because they’re a semester calendar in terms of the number of hours you put in. In a semester course, you get 15 weeks, three hours a week. 45 hours. And I guess you guys have 10 weeks, but you have more than.
AS: Yeah, the classes go for an hour and a quarter, something like that. And the Tuesday Thursday classes go for 2 hours each. Yeah, those are long classes.
ML: I love the trimesters.
AS: It is nice.
HS: Yeah, because if you’re in a bad class, it’s only a few weeks and you’re out.
ML: Yeah!
AS: That’s what everyone always says, if you get a bad class, you’ve only got a few more weeks. By the time you figure out it’s a bad class it’s half way over anyway.
ML: Exactly.
AS: So that is nice. Of course, then, the opposite, if you’ve got a really good class, it also ends really quickly.
ML: But I feel like you, since you are only taking three or four classes at a time, you can really focus more on what you’re doing, because you don’t have as much going on in your head. I’m not thinking about seven other classes.
AS: It does go very fast, but it, I do like it. It took some getting used to coming from Black Hawk, but it is nice. And the breaks are nice. Cause we still get, you know, a break every 10 weeks.
HS: Yeah, that’s nice.
ML: And then you can go visit your friends at other schools.
HS: Our breaks never coincide with the other schools, do they?
ML: Mm, that’s why I like it. Cause they you can go visit them [ambulance siren] Whoa. Cause then you can go visit your friends at other schools. We should take all this out by the way. We don’t need to know my personal opinion.
AS: No, we probably won’t be transcribing all of this.
[55:00-1:05:26]
Dr. and Mrs. Sundelius, Margaret, and Andrew work through paperwork and say their goodbyes.